Sacrifice of the Raven
by North of the North
Summary: Lily Potter was not the only one who made a sacrifice that October night. James Potter did as well, and it was his sacrifice that ensured Harry lived. Lily's sacrifice was supposed to have brought their son aid…only that help ends up arriving 15 years late. Creature fic! Veela Draco.


Sacrifice of the Raven

Summary: Lily Potter was not the only one who made a sacrifice that October night. James Potter did as well, and it was his sacrifice that ensured Harry lived. Lily's was supposed to have brought their son aid…only that help ends up arriving 15 years late. Creature fic! Veela Draco.

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Lily Potter was not the only one who made a sacrifice that October night when Voldemort came to their home to kill them and their baby son.

They had planned out what they would do beforehand, of course.

James went up wandless that night against the Dark Lord on purpose.

He knew he had to die, just as Lily herself had planned to in the eventuality that a time like this, when they could feel the anti-apparition wards go up and the front door open, and they both could feel the wards preventing flooing out of the area and also how the wards had essentially locked them in. Now that there was no chance of escape, they followed through with their last-minute plan, and so both Lily and James Potter died as a sacrifice for their son.

James, in order to let the magic of his cloak of invisibility pass on to his son. After all, by talking with Death before this, he had made the same deal that every Potter had made before then who wanted the cloak passed on before their own natural death, that his death would be allowed to happen so that the next in line would have its protection. After all, if worse came to worse and the only protection he could offer his son would be the cloak's power of ensuring the continued life of it's owner until their natural death, then that would be what he'd give his son, even if it meant he had to enter a deal with Death to let him die so his son could have his cloak.

Lily, on the other hand, had let herself die, even knowing their son would live no matter what due to the Potter cloak for a very different reason. Her death was meant to call on her family.

They had known about the Horcuxes. And that had been what changed their original plan where Lily would shield herself from whatever magical blast might occur when her son, with his newly gifted Deathly Hallow given protection, was attacked, and then would take their son and bring him with her to the Fae realm using the magical blast's energy to send them both there even before they had both fully absorbed enough magic to do so.

Lily had always had a way with house elves, due to her heritage, of course, and Kreacher had told her about what he and Sirius` brother had found. That was when they had realized Dumbledore may not be their greatest protector. He had caught Lily talking to Kreacher, and while her mind shields had kept hers and Kreacher`s secrets, Lily hadn`t been able to stop the shudder that had rolled over her when she`d felt her old headmaster`s mind try to enter hers, and the way he`d asked in such an innocent and yet somehow threatening voice if she had perhaps found out anything from the house elf of importance and how it would be in her best interest, as well as everyone else's, for her to tell him if she had. When she`d stuttered out a no, and that she`d just been catching up with the house elf, she'd felt the strangest sense of relief as she'd felt his mind move away from hers. That had sealed the deal in her mind, and she'd gone home to tell James of her strange new suspicions of their old headmaster.

That day was the last day she had left hers and her husband`s Fidelius protected property. It was also the day before the Halloween attack when they were betrayed.

Though she hadn't had the chance before she'd left his home to talk to Sirius about what she`d found out about the Dark Lord, (she hadn`t been able to stay in that house after the feelings she'd had of danger from the headmaster and had run out immediately)…she did have the chance to talk to her husband.

So they'd had the chance to modify their last-ditch plans.

Now that they knew that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named could not be entirely killed, and that they had a plan for if all their other defences were overcome to protect their son…they needed a way to ensure the continued protection of Harry after any curses that may be sent at him would explode on the protection of Death`s cloak.

And so, their last-ditch plan also counted on Lily dying to warn her true kin.

For, you see, she was not a muggleborn at all, but a changeling left to satisfy the old tradition of leaving an elf every generation of born elves in the human realm to soak up human magic and bring that magic back as new magic back into the Fae realm upon their maturity and human death in the human realm, only to wake from their fake death in the Fae realm in full bloom and beauty in the shape they`d had at their maturity and overflowing with the magic they`d absorbed.

Unfortunately, while Lily had been trying to keep her Fae relatives apprised of the situation as much as she could, time moved incredibly slowly in their realm and the last time she had heard from them had been with their appearance to bless her wedding to James.

As far as she knew, her true kin were probably even now only just opening her first letters on the danger of their current Voldemort situation. From how time moved for them, perhaps the letters had only just magically appeared on her true parent's dining room table and they were only just now reaching for it.

However, Lily was counting on the changeling failsafe that she knew her son had been born with, and that his green eyes hinted at how he was of full elf heritage himself.

With her premature death, she and her son`s latent elf magic should pull him straight into the Fae world with the risk of danger apparent to her son`s magic. Perhaps she even would be sent straight to the Fae realm as the killing curse would come towards her. She and James had hoped that even just the danger of the situation if the Dark Lord were to appear right in front of her would make it so that her magic would pull her and their son straight into the Fae realm before it matured fully and sent her back in old age.

Unfortunately, their theories on how she and her son's magic would work didn't pan out exactly to plan, and by the time that Lily Potter awoke in the Realm of the Fae alongside her husband, though for them it had been only 7 days…for their son, it had been seven years. And by the time they had reached her parents after travelling from the Sacred Grove where they had been reborn and reached the outskirts of the Fae realm, they had no idea how many days it had taken their magic Lily`s Fae magic to manifest them new bodies, but they knew time was running out. And yet, as quickly as they travelled, and despite how fast Lily`s birth parents had mobilized and ensured the support of the city guard to go and find and protect their Lily's child…it had been another few years in the human realm.

And Harry was now in the summer following his 5th year at Hogwarts and was wallowing in grief from the death of his godfather and was currently locked up in his room at the Dursley`s, as he had been all summer long.

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